Women’s competition in this Olympic figure skating season already has been packed with everything from soup to flutz. Saturday night, before a sellout crowd of 19,082 at the CoreStates Center, the menu for the upcoming Winter Games became even more tantalizing.
Although Michelle Kwan deep-sixed her rivals again in the U.S. Championships, regaining the title she won two years ago, the long-program performances of Tara Lipinski and Nicole Bobek also were good enough to create the real possibililty of a U.S. women’s medal sweep at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
“I think we can absolutely do 1-2-3, no problem,” Bobek said.
For the first time, the U.S. has an Olympic skating team with three women who have won national titles–Bobek in 1995, Lipinski in 1997, Kwan in 1996 and 1998.
“I think we have a dream team for the Olympics,” said Christa Fassi, Bobek’s coach.
Bobek finished third behind Kwan, who received eight perfect 6.0s for presentation, and Lipinski, who rallied from her fourth place in Thursday’s short program. Tonia Kwiatkowski, third after the short program, ended any doubt about the Olympic team selection when she fell on two jumps in her free skate and wound up fourth.
Kwan, 17, belied any signs of her recent struggle with a broken toe by winning the championship with short and long programs that received unprecedented acclaim from the judges. She had earned seven perfect scores for presentation in the short program.
“It was the performance of my life,” Kwan said of her 4-minute skate to a light, airy piece of music called “Lyra Angelica” by William Alwyn. So was the short program to the more profound, dramatic piano music of Rachmaninoff.
As Kwan waited to take the ice as the fifth of six skaters in the final group, she told her coach, Frank Carroll, “How could we ever describe to anybody what it feels like to sit and wait for this, what the feelings of anxiety are? But you know something, I like it.”
Kwan was utterly magnificent in every aspect of her skating Saturday, from her seven successful triple jumps to her breathtaking spiral sequences to a reverse camel spin in which her leg elevation seems to defy the limits of the human anatomy. She showed total security on the landings of her jumps, including the triple salchow and triple toe loop that had been most affected by the injury.
“I’ve never felt so good,” Kwan said.
Had she been able to do a triple-triple jump combination, Kwan might have also gotten 6.0s for technical merit, where her scores were one 5.8 and eight 5.9s.
“Having so many judges score me 6.0, I don’t know what to think,” said Kwan, the 1996 world champion.
The road from that world title to an Olympic gold took some unexpectedly intriguing turns for Kwan after she unraveled in the 1997 U.S. Championships and announced in November her foot would have to be placed in a cast. Her health became one of the fascinations about this season, along with Lipinski’s lutz and a potentially (soup) canned Olympic team selection.
Whether there would be pressure to pick Kwan, Lipinski and Bobek after Tuesday’s announcement of a Campbell’s Soups ad campaign featuring the three U.S. champions had been hotly debated in the past week. The company is a big bucks U.S. Figure Skating Association sponsor, and it might have been more seemly to wait until after the championships before unveiling the ads.
Kwiatkowski’s flawed performance made it a moot point. But Lipinski’s flutz apparently will remain a hot topic.
Whether Lipinski is doing a lutz jump or a flutz jump–which depends on her takeoff edge and can bring a scoring penalty–led ABC to devote three replays to it after the short program. That emphasis on what became an inconsequential part of Lipinski’s performance made her “team”of agents and parents so edgy they declined an ABC interview Friday.
Lipinski, 15, who became the youngest world champion in history a year ago and will be the youngest U.S. Olympic woman singles skater since Janet Lynn in 1968, clearly was shaken by her fall on a triple flip jump in the short program.
In the long program, she fought to hold the landings of nearly all her seven successful triple jumps, and her trademark triple loop-triple loop combination lacked the requisite rotations on the second jump. It was still enough to beat Bobek on the strength of technical marks that generously included four 5.9s
“It felt great, especially after a so-so short,” Lipinski said. “To come back even stronger was really exciting.
“I made this dream, and I hope to make another one.”
The often erratic Bobek, 20, did a self-assured but safe free skate, opting not to try any triple jump combinations and doubling a planned triple loop, a jump that has been her nemesis. She skated with her usual theatrical flow and did five triples.
“I feel like my whole life has been an emotional roller coaster,” said Bobek, a Chicago native. “This year, I worked the hardest I’ve ever worked, put so many tears into it, so much emotion, so much feeling for everything, I’m just glad I could go out there and do it.”
